


Badlands

by CarrieL



Category: Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: A legendary weakness for blondes, A puppy named Delta, Amnesia, Babyfic, Chakotay crashes another shuttle, F/M, Maquis
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-06
Updated: 2016-10-22
Packaged: 2018-08-19 23:06:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 8,529
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8227868
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CarrieL/pseuds/CarrieL
Summary: Chakotay wakes up in a time and place he can't recall - because Laura W's amnesia fic inspired me.





	1. A face you’ve only seen in an intel file

You wake up with a headache like you recently encountered the business end of a bat’leth. At first you’re afraid to open your eyes because that might hurt too, but you ease up your right eyelid to take a peek. You’re on a biobed in a Starfleet facility – which means you’re a prisoner. 

The slight movement of your eye causes a bustle around you. You hear the beeps of a medical tricorder and a hand folds around yours.

“He’s regaining consciousness,” an unfamiliar male voice says. “He may be experiencing some confusion. The memory centers of the brain were affected.”

“Chakotay,” a woman says – probably the one who’s holding your hand considering how close the voice is. Who would be holding your hand? It doesn’t sound like Seska or B’Elanna. “Open your eyes, Chakotay,” she says. “You’re going to be okay.”

You brace yourself for more pain and open your eyes. The bright overhead light you had feared isn’t there. Lighting comes from behind panels, indirect and soothing. You blink as a medical officer comes into focus at the foot of the biobed, a middle-aged man without much hair left. 

You shift your eyes to identify the source of the woman’s voice and there she is, hovering to your left. Shoulder-length reddish hair, worried blue eyes, and a face you’ve only seen in an intel file. It’s the face of the captain who chased you into the Badlands – now the face of your captor. She’ll get a tidy promotion out of this. Maybe a bigger ship than that little runabout she came after you with.

“Janeway,” you say.

“Yes.” She smiles as if she’s relieved. She doesn’t seem to have noticed your bitter tone and she’s still holding your hand. This must be some new kind of prisoner psychology, but she won’t be getting anything out of you today. You’re wise to Starfleet’s confidence games. “How do you feel?”

“Like a Trakan beast kicked me in the head,” you say, which is true and not classified.

“Doctor!” she exclaims. “He’s still in pain.” 

The medical officer approaches and before you can protest applies a hypospray to your neck. The pain abates instantly, but who knows what else he’s given you – a sedative, a truth serum? You breathe deeply and try to sense any change in your brain function. If anything, you feel clearer than you’ve felt in weeks, surviving on minimal rations through firefight after firefight.

“I’m hungry,” you say, because it’s also true and their gentle prisoner protocol might allow you a decent meal before the interrogation fun begins.

Janeway moves to the replicator and orders mushroom soup, which disturbs you on several levels. First, it suggests a level of detail in Starfleet intelligence files that you hadn’t been aware of. They’ve interrogated your friends or even your family to discover that preference. Second, she’s beginning to unnerve you with the solicitous friend routine – exactly the intended effect, no doubt. She's out of uniform in some kind of snug tunic that looks all kinds of right, probably meant to soften you up. And third, when she brings the soup steaming on a tray and raises the biobed to a sitting position so that you can eat, the soup is your mother’s own recipe. You drop your spoon with a splash.

“What the hell is this?”

Janeway’s jaw drops. “The family soup recipe. Your favorite, Chakotay. Doesn’t it taste right?” She picks up the spoon and tastes it. “It tastes just right to me. Doctor, scan him again. I’m afraid the brain damage is more serious than we thought.”

“I’m not brain damaged,” you snarl. “I don’t know what kind of game you’re playing but I demand to be returned to my ship.”

Janeway and the doctor exchange glances. 

“You took a leave, remember?” she says. “You’ll be reassigned to command Voyager next year.”

“Voyager? What are you talking about? My ship is the Val Jean.”

At that, Janeway turns the color of cauliflower. She braces herself with both hands on the edge of the biobed and studies your face.

“What stardate is this, Chakotay?” she asks.

You consider. Judging by the severity of your injury, you could have been out for a few days. The Val Jean might even have been destroyed, considering the odd reaction from these Starfleet hacks when you mentioned your ship.

“It can’t be any later than Stardate 48316.2.”

The doctor steps to your side and begins scanning you. He snaps shut the medical tricorder with a frown.

“Captain Chakotay,” he says. “This will come as a shock, but today is Stardate 59459.12. Over twelve Terran years have passed since Stardate 48316.2.”

“ _What?_ ”

The doctor holds out the tricorder with the time and date displayed at the top of the screen.

“You could fake that easily,” you snap.

“To what end?” Janeway asks. The baffled expression is good. She's some actress. You have to find a way out of here - but first you need to know where here is.

“Where am I being held? What are the charges against me?” Your head is feeling much better. You push the tray aside and swing your legs off the biobed. 

“You really should rest,” the doctor says.

Janeway puts a hand on your arm. “There are no charges against you. It was a bad shuttle accident during training maneuvers, that’s all. We should have kept you sedated until you’d recovered more fully.” She shoots a glare at the doctor that is somehow familiar, but you shake off her hand and stand up.

“Where am I?” you demand again.

“You’re at Starfleet Medical in San Francisco,” the doctor answers. “You’re home.”

As they both stare at you, you survey the room and find it otherwise empty. No security. No sign of force fields. You shove Janeway aside and sprint for the door.

TO BE CONTINUED.


	2. Twelve years lost

Only when you’re out in the corridor do you glance down and realize that you’re wearing standard Starfleet blue hospital pajamas – not much of an outfit for a getaway. You need civilian clothes and you need them fast. On second thought, a Starfleet uniform might be the right ticket out of this place, if only you could find a replicator. 

You duck into an empty patient room just in time to hear noises you assume are Janeway and the doctor running the other direction. You don’t have long, but the replicator is fast and silent, thank the spirits. They called you captain, so on a hunch you pull up a current captain’s uniform, and surprisingly the replicator doesn’t hesitate to deliver it to you. 

A few minutes later you’re back in command red mingled with silvery gray in a new uniform configuration. Styles are fickle at Starfleet headquarters. You preferred the black, but beggars can’t be fashion critics. 

The corridor is quiet so you risk a peek. No one. You’re near the stairwell and your pursuers headed the other way, probably toward the ‘lift, so you hurry to the stairs and find them empty too. From there you’re only a few floors from an unguarded, unalarmed exit – and that fact triggers every red flag. The ease of your interface with the replicator suddenly makes you cringe. 

It’s like they want you to escape, which probably means they know exactly where you are. They may even have embedded a surveillance device in your skin while you were out, so that you’d lead them straight back to the Maquis. Starfleet obviously has a whole new bag of tricks. They’ve been taking lessons from the Cardassians and that can’t be good. 

You need to get your hands on your own medical tricorder and a computer interface that will give you straight answers about simple matters like the date. Then you can start figuring out what happened to you, your ship, and your crew.

Even though you suspect that you’re being tracked, out of a habitual sense of caution you’ve learned since joining the Maquis you keep out of sight of the medical facility’s windows until you reach the far side of the next building. Nobody looks twice at a man in uniform walking briskly across the greens of Starfleet headquarters. You chose well. You are nearly invisible in this uniform. A few people even greet you, but you dismiss this as the born flunky’s reaction to anyone wearing a captain’s pips.

Headquarters is less secure than it was on your last visit a few years ago. You expect to be questioned on your way out the city gate, but the cadet on guard duty waves you through and there’s no sign of a biometric scan. Maybe it’s stealthed – or maybe they’re lulling you into a false sense of safety.

Now that you’re on city streets your uniform is a liability. High-ranking Starfleet officers are no novelty in this neighborhood, but still, people notice. Anyone following you would only have to ask which way the captain went. You step into an alley, shrug off the distinctive jacket, pop off the pips, and drop them in a recessed doorway that looks like it hasn’t been used in years. 

You’re wearing a ring you don’t recognize, part of the scam Janeway was running on you no doubt. It looks like a precious metal. There’s a jewelry store across the street where you trade it for credits to buy yourself a vest and a couple of hot empanadas with enough left for whatever fresh challenges arise. You stay out of the line of sight from the street corners as much as possible, but so far there is no sign of pursuit. You zigzag through a few more streets until you reach the civilian health clinic. 

Once you’re inside, complaining of a pulled muscle and asking for the restroom, it doesn’t take long to lay hands on a medical tricorder and sneak it into a toilet stall. It’s less sophisticated than the Starfleet model, without the date and time display you’d hoped for, but it tells you what you need to know: you have no tracking implants. For as long as you can avoid detection by more conventional means, you are a free man. You drop the tricorder in its dock on your way back to the waiting room.

In the corner is an info terminal. You’re tempted to start typing Maquis names into it, but that’s just the sort of trap you must avoid. You search your mind for the name of a friend who might be on Earth. Everyone who was aboard the Val Jean is likely dead or in custody. Most of the Maquis are spread across the galaxy on their own missions, unless – _yes_. You remember at last that the woman who recruited you into the Maquis, Sveta Korepanova, has been back on Earth lately doing more recruiting. 

She wouldn’t be in any public listing, but she keeps a sailboat docked at Sausalito as housing with an easy getaway built in. You duck out of the clinic and start walking. Most forms of transport have ubiquitous surveillance these days. Too risky. You feel safer on foot, but it’s a long walk. Night has fallen by the time you slip through shadows to the pier where Sveta docks. 

The sailboat is gone. In its place is a rather luxurious houseboat with a row of abundant junipers in matching pots along the deck and tinkling wind chimes by the door. Not exactly a rebel hideout. You sigh and begin to turn away when movement inside the houseboat catches your eye. A woman approaches a table lamp and switches it on. The illumination shows you her face – Sveta. You can’t believe how careless she’s become, but maybe it’s a good sign. She seems to feel safe here. Or – and you can’t discount this possibility after the day you’ve had – Starfleet has gotten to her and she’s turned double agent against the Maquis.

With this risk in mind, you avoid the front door and circle until you find an open casement window into the bathroom. You pop out the screen and slip inside. Old bluesy jazz plays. Sveta always did have good taste in music and this is more upbeat than what she usually goes for. Things are going well for her – maybe too well. You listen as she takes a call from a friend and makes plans for dinner in the city over the weekend, laughing about her weakness for sangria like she hasn’t a care in the world. 

Maquis are out there dying and she’s acting like she’s on vacation. But you can’t judge too quickly. You’ve had to take on all kinds of roles yourself to advance the cause. She might be playing another one. She might need you not to blow her cover. You’ve always trusted her, and as far as you know she’s the only person who can tell you the truth about what’s going on. 

You take a deep breath and step into the hall. It’s only a few steps to a place where Sveta can see you from her seat in the living room while you remain out of sight of anyone outside the houseboat. It takes her a few seconds to sense your presence and lift her white-blonde head. Her face melts in relief.

“Chakotay!” She’s up and hugging you before you can ask any of the questions you need answers to. You still have no idea if you can trust her. “Are you all right?” She puts a gentle hand to the side of your head. “Do you need to lie down?”

“I’m okay.” You pat her on the back but hold stiff against the hug. “I need some answers, Sveta. Something very strange is going on. Can you pull the curtains?”

She looks confused for a second then nods. “Of course.” She seals the room against the watchful night and gestures toward a chair. “Please. Let’s talk.”

You sit, one eye on the door, back to the wall. “First things first. What is today’s date?”

“It’s May twentieth, 2383.” She watches your face carefully as she says these words, as if she knows they’ll be a shock to you. She’s talked to Starfleet. That doesn’t prove she’s turned traitor, but it’s a worrying sign. Either she’s telling the truth or she’s betrayed you, and you hardly know which one to wish for. Twelve years lost. Spirits, is it possible? Your mind is a sea of questions. You examine your own hands, looking for signs of age, but they look like the same old hands you've always had.

“The last I remember, it was 2371. What happened to twelve years, Sveta? What have we both been doing all this time?” 

She’d better have the full story, and it better be damn good.

TO BE CONTINUED.


	3. Kathryn who?

“I don’t know the whole story” are her first words. This is not beginning well. “But B’Elanna does. Do you mind if I get her on vid?”

You’re immediately suspicious at the suggestion of contacting someone else. You got the drop on Sveta by sneaking in so you’re pretty sure she hasn’t had the chance to alert anyone about your presence. This could be her attempt to turn you in without scaring you away. You stall.

“Where is B’Elanna?”

“They have a place on base. You – well, I know you’ve been there a lot. She and I never knew each other well, but you’ve told me about it. They’re good friends of yours.”

“Who is they?”

Sveta’s face twists in concern. “She and Tom and Miral. Are you all right, Chakotay? Can I get you something to drink?”

“No. No drinks.” The last thing you need is to be sedated and wake up back in Janeway’s custody, under the care of her Dr. Svengali. Just sitting still is making you nervous. You need to find out what you can and slip back into the darkness.

“Okay.”

“Who are Tom and Miral?”

“Her husband, Tom Paris, and their daughter. You’re scaring me. You really don’t remember?”

“ _Paris?_ ” Now you know she’s lying. “You expect me to believe that B’Elanna would marry that mercenary?” You’re half out of your chair, ready to run. The place could be surrounded for all you know. The drumbeat of your heart fills your whole body.

Sveta isn’t alarmed by your outburst – she never was easily startled – but her forehead wrinkles with worry and she scoots her chair closer to yours. “I know, I had a hard time believing it too, but you were all out there seven years together. Things changed. Paris changed, I guess. They seem happy. You’ll have to ask B’Elanna if you want an explanation.”

“What do you mean, out there seven years? Out where?” The story only gets stranger.

Sveta sighs and leans her elbows on her knees. You notice the gray strands in hair that used to be pure platinum. “You were stranded in the Delta quadrant. Some story about an alien who pulled you out of the Badlands, your ship and Voyager, and then Janeway destroyed the technology that could’ve gotten you back. You wound up combining crews. You were her first officer.”

You shut your eyes. There’s not a word Sveta just said that makes any sense, especially the idea that Janeway would destroy your only way home. And the ludicrous notion that you would serve under her – for seven years? Impossible. You’d have taken your lousy chances with the Val Jean before you’d have done that.

“And the last five years?” you ask. You might as well absorb the fullness of the truth … or the lie. You’re not sure yet which you’re hearing.

“You spent some time with your family on Dorvan, you commanded Voyager briefly – but you’ve been back on Earth the last several years, teaching at the Academy.”

She’s got to be kidding.

“I just abandoned the Maquis?”

Now Sveta’s eyes fill with tears and she puts a hand on yours. “Oh Chakotay. I’m so sorry to have to tell you this twice. The first time I wrote you a letter through the subspace link. I didn’t get to tell you in person. I don’t know which is worse. Chakotay - the Cardassians and the Jem’Hadar wiped out the Maquis nearly a decade ago. There were only a handful of survivors – your crew on Voyager, and a few of us on undercover missions.”

Suddenly, your whole body feels like ice. You’re buried in a glacier up to your neck and Sveta’s words are reverberating in your ears because you can’t put your hands up to block them. Your friends – people who were like family, people you would have died for and easily might have. Now air is hard to get. You start sucking it in as hard as you can, unable to get enough, and a second later Sveta is telling you to breathe into a paper bag and pushing your head between your knees. 

Slowly, normal consciousness returns. It’s one thing to hear this from Sveta. It’s been years since you knew her well and this houseboat setup is suspicious. You need to talk to B’Elanna or Seska. They’re the only ones you’d trust – once you’re sure they’re not being coerced – to tell you the truth.

“You said you could get B’Elanna on vid?” you say. It’s a risk, but being alive and on Earth is a risk. “What about Seska? Is she around too?”

A hostile shadow moves across Sveta’s face at the mention of Seska, but those two never got along.

“Seska is dead,” she says without elaborating. “But we can call B’Elanna. She’ll be home this time of night.”

Sveta shifts the vid screen so you both can watch and asks the computer to contact the Torres-Paris residence. If this is a scam, they’ve really gone all out for verisimilitude. Minute by minute, you’re starting to accept that this really is 2383 – especially when B’Elanna’s calm, mature face appears before you. She’s put on a kilo or two, some healthy rounding to her cheeks, and as she turns away from what you can only assume is her family to face the screen, she looks happy. You hardly recognize her with a smile. This is not the angry young woman you knew.

“ _B’Elanna?_ ” you ask in disbelief. Her face transforms immediately with concern and she moves closer to the screen to see you better. It’s her all right. Anxiety makes her look much more like herself.

“Chakotay! I’m so glad to see you! Does Kathryn know you’re okay? She’s been frantic.”

“Kathryn? Kathryn who?”

B’Elanna gasps and claps a hand to her mouth.

“Tom,” she whispers. “Come here.”


	4. I guess you'd call it amnesia

Tom Paris crowds into the screen and you stiffen involuntarily. You’re having a hard time believing this pairing, but B’Elanna cuddles close when he puts his arm around her. There’s no sign of the disgust you would expect if she were being forced into this. You’re edging toward the unavoidable conclusion that Paris is her husband – and that the rest of the extraordinary story everyone has been telling you today is also fact. Your mouth has gone dry and you wish you’d accepted whatever liquid Sveta was going to give you, sedative or no sedative.

“Good to see you up and around, Chakotay,” Paris says, as if you’re old friends. “How are you feeling? Bit of a headache?”

“A little confused,” you admit. It’s impossible not to be stiff. You know this man to be a cocky wiseass who flies for whoever pays him the most. “I seem to be having – well, I guess you’d call it amnesia. The last thing I remember, I was piloting the Val Jean through the Badlands and you were in prison in New Zealand.” Which was a good place for him, as far as you’re concerned.

B’Elanna smirks and Tom looks down with a little half smile. His facial expressions are less smug than they used to be. This new earnestness becomes him, even if the hair loss doesn’t.

“Actually, I was with Voyager on that mission. Captain Janeway recruited me personally. I was with you in the Delta quadrant for seven years, Chakotay. We put aside our bad blood long ago. I consider you a close friend.”

“I see.” You absorb this for a minute as you look around Sveta’s living area. There’s a slight lap of water against the hull but otherwise the night is quiet. No sign of anyone moving in to arrest you. Your heart rate begins to subside slightly. Something else occurs to you. “Is Miral there?” 

The child would be tough to fake – a one quarter Klingon little girl who doesn’t hesitate to call B’Elanna and Tom her mommy and daddy? If she doesn’t exist, they can’t exactly replicate her.

“Of course!” B’Elanna smiles automatically at the mention of her daughter and calls Miral to her side. The girl is about five, skinny and giggly, holding some sort of ship she’s built out of small blocks. She has B’Elanna’s hair and forehead ridges and her father’s laughing blue eyes. She is real. They are telling you the truth. You reel just a little but come back to focus on the screen as she recognizes you and waves.

“Hi Uncle Chakotay!” she says and holds up her ship for your inspection. “Can I come over and play with Delta this weekend?”

Tom breaks in to help you. “Uncle Chakotay needs to rest this weekend, sweetheart. Maybe we can go play with the dog next weekend. You can finish setting the table.”

“Can I have chocolate milk, Daddy?” she asks over the top of B’Elanna’s head, Tom apparently being the soft touch of her two parents.

“We’ll see,” he says as B’Elanna gives him a look. Miral bounds away and her parents turn back to the screen. B’Elanna’s voice drops into a more serious register.

“Where are you? The incoming comm is tagged with Sveta’s ID.”

“That’s right.” You shift the screen to show them Sveta beside you. She and B’Elanna both nod, but there’s no recognition beyond that, no friendliness. B’Elanna seems disturbed to see you there. She knows that you and Sveta were involved briefly, but she also knows that it’s over – unless it’s not? Or there’s something else you should know about Sveta and now don’t because of the amnesia? B’Elanna leans in to address you directly.

“You need to go home, Chakotay. Do you need me to come get you?”

You glance at Sveta and to your surprise she nods in encouragement. “B’Elanna’s right. You should go home. It’s probably better if she takes you.”

There is nothing to do but say yes. If you can’t trust B’Elanna, there’s no one you can trust. You might as well give yourself up now. 

She’s at the door in under ten minutes, noisy as a targ on the decking, destroying all your worries about a security ambush as she bursts in to hug you and shed a few tears on your newly acquired vest.

“You’ve got to stop scaring us all like this, old man,” she says in an angry tone that you know hides her fear and love.

“I’m sorry,” you say. You’re so reassured to see B’Elanna live in person and obviously acting of her own free will that you’d apologize for anything, even though you still have very little idea what’s happened. Didn’t they say something about a shuttle accident during training maneuvers, back when you were with Janeway and the doctor at Starfleet Medical? If that was true – you start to recalculate everything you’ve seen since you woke up, starting with – 

“B’Elanna,” you say as she leads you outside, wasting no time on small talk with Sveta, “who is Kathryn?” Somewhere out there a woman is waiting for you, frantic for your return. Has Starfleet even notified her about the accident? Her name is unfamiliar, so she’s someone you met during the lost twelve years. You wonder what she looks like, what her life has been, if she loves you, if you love her. The rocking pier underfoot is a good metaphor for your emotions as you try to fathom what your feelings might be for a person you don’t know.

B’Elanna stops on the ramp up to the boardwalk and turns back to you with a heaviness in her shoulders, like your loss of memory is a personal burden to her. 

“Kathryn is Admiral Kathryn Janeway,” she says. She takes a long breath and lets it out. You sense that you’ve disappointed her without having any idea how or why - and then the significance of the name she's just spoken strikes your consciousness with the force of a photon torpedo. Her next words nearly take your legs from under you. “Your wife, Chakotay.”

TO BE CONTINUED.


	5. You can't fault your taste

If the revelation about the massacre of the Maquis brought on hyperventilation, this one may give you a heart attack. You stumble, grab the rail, and nearly topple into Richardson Bay.

“I m-married Janeway?” you stammer.

You try to bring back images of her from the brief encounter earlier today, when she held your hand and was so solicitous that you were sure she was playing you. Now you try to twist your mind around the idea that her concern was sincere and find that it won’t bend that way. You recall the stolen files that you perused to try to get a sense of the officer assigned to capture you. Slim pickings to explain a marriage. She’s a Starfleet golden girl, the daughter of an admiral, and the sort of person who could never comprehend your choice to abandon your commission to fight with the Maquis. The only thing more incomprehensible than you marrying her is her agreeing to marry you. What’s her angle?

You can’t fault your taste – she’s beautiful and brilliant, and certainly brave to chase you into the Badlands in an Intrepid-class ship. But you had always imagined that your wife would have a great and generous heart, that she would be wise and compassionate. You had hoped to find a woman who would be at home among your people and love them as much as they would love her. A Starfleet admiral could never be that woman. 

B’Elanna is watching your emotions play out on your face. Hers is full of compassion and her voice when she speaks is tender.

“I never thought I’d fall for Tom either. We’re hard cases, you and I. You and Kathryn nearly blew it, too. But I’m serious when I say that I have never seen two people more devoted.”

“It’s not – ” you begin, then struggle for more words. “It’s not some kind of marriage of convenience, to protect my crew once we got back to the Alpha quadrant?” This is the only explanation your flailing mind can conceive. Maybe marrying her was a reasonably painless prisoner exchange, to make sure the Maquis walked free. You’re her trophy and in private you lead separate lives. It wouldn’t be pretty, but it would make sense.

“Convenience?” B’Elanna smirks – she’s doing that a lot lately, as if mirth bubbles up in her now – and then laughs aloud. “No, I wouldn’t say that. The night you and she finally stopped circling and attacked I thought you were going to tear each other’s clothes off before you left the ballroom. Every woman in the room went weak in the knees at the way you kissed her on the dance floor. It’s always been like that with you two, even when she was holding you at arm’s length. Especially then.”

“She held me at arm’s length?” This isn’t what you’d pictured. Your imagination is running more to the femme fatale dragging you into her web, manipulating you into her bed to get the tactical advantage – not that this would be any great hardship for you. But a scenario in which you’re passionately in love with a member of Starfleet brass? You’d just as soon kiss a Cardassian. Maybe you’ve managed to hide the truth even from B’Elanna.

But again she chortles. At least this whole deranged situation is providing her with an evening’s entertainment.

“Her? Yes. She held the line against fraternizing with a crewmember way beyond the point of reason. For a long time Tom had a pool going about whether you were having a secret relationship. You were even stranded alone with her on a planet. We still don’t know what went on there. You’re both very private. But Chakotay?”

“Yes?”

She steps toward you and leans down the rail so you can see her face clearly in the glow from the overhead streetlight. “If I’m sure of anything in this world, it’s that you love her and she loves you. I know this is all really confusing for you, but try to remember that.”

“Okay.” You’ll keep your own counsel on this one for now. You need to get Janeway in private to know the truth. You glance back at the houseboat. “Can I ask one more thing?”

“Go ahead.”

“You were uncomfortable with me being at Sveta’s. Is there anything I should know about her?”

B’Elanna begins to walk again, heading for the street. You hurry to catch up.

“Let’s just say you have a legendary weakness for blondes and you don’t always have the best judgment where women are concerned. I didn’t want you to do anything stupid before you remember who you are and who you love.”

“A weakness for blondes?” Aside from Sveta, you can’t think what she means. Your last relationship of any significance was with Seska, a Bajoran brunette.

B’Elanna accelerates and you jog to keep up. “You nearly lost Kathryn over your last one – a former Borg half your age. If I were you I wouldn’t mention that you went to see Sveta. It’s not that Kathryn’s jealous, it’s just that – ” she says, throwing you a wicked sidelong glance, “you don’t want to remind anyone of that whole embarrassing episode.”

There’s clearly much more of a story behind B’Elanna’s words than what she’s telling you, but now is not the time to explore it. You need to get home, wherever that is, and face the Starfleet admiral who shares it.

TO BE CONTINUED


	6. The creature you fear

With the time difference it’s nearly ten at night in Indiana, where you apparently live in a low, gracious farmhouse on the edge of a meadow that glows silver in the moonlight. You want to question B’Elanna about how all this came to pass but she’s hurried you from the transport station at a pace that doesn’t invite conversation. 

When Janeway answers your knock, she’s in uniform, looking more like the creature you fear. She throws open the door a little breathless under the porch light. Her jacket hangs open and propped on her shoulder is a baby in footy pajamas, screaming for all he’s worth. There’s a stain down the front of her shirt and a baby blanket over her shoulder. Her face shows determination wreathed in exhaustion.

“Come in,” she says with the barest nod past you to B’Elanna. It’s an order you don’t even think of refusing. As you step over the threshold she hands you the baby and brushes her lips across yours, leaving behind a surprisingly electric buzz on your skin even if it’s just an act. From between her feet a beagle puppy rushes forward, barking an ecstatic welcome, jumps up on your leg then, in its excitement, pees at your feet. 

Janeway groans. She slumps against the wall and shuts her eyes. “I’ve never been so glad to see anyone in my life.”

B’Elanna says, “I’ve got to get home. I’ll leave you to get reacquainted.” She beats such a hasty retreat that there could be Cardies at her heels. Thanks, you think, for the backup, and for the warning about the – nephew? Whoever left the baby chose a hell of a time. Admiral or not, Janeway looks to be at the end of her rope. And the dog? This must be Delta. Whose crazy idea was it to introduce a pet into this domestic disaster?

By instinct you lay the fussy baby belly down on your forearm and begin to rock him the way your mother showed you, the way all the tribal members did as babies were passed around. You don’t have to think about it, you just do it. He stops crying. 

Janeway strips off her jacket, drops it on the floor, and peels off the shirt underneath to reveal her uniform tank. You try not to stare, but it’s an odd feeling to realize that you know this woman and have no memory of it. You’re suddenly angry at your own mind for keeping this memory from you. You wonder if there’s any genuine intimacy between you, or if the kiss at the door was purely for B’Elanna’s benefit. Janeway didn’t seem eager for her to stick around, in spite of Tom and B’Elanna’s claims that you’re all good friends now.

“I’ve got to change,” she throws over her shoulder as she gathers the pile of clothing, scoops up the puppy, and heads down the dark hall. “I’ve got vomit all over me.” 

She leaves you alone in a foyer lit only by a few nightlights close to the floor. The effect is oddly ethereal after the madhouse welcome. The baby is nearly asleep on your arm, sighing and smacking his lips as he curls close to your chest. You have no idea where to put him down and you can’t be sure where the puddle of pee begins and ends so you shut the door and wait. 

Long minutes later she reappears in the same sort of snug tunic you admired earlier, this time with nothing underneath, carrying some sort of hand tool. Her face is freshly scrubbed, her hair brushed back, and her legs bare. She looks young and small – nothing like the ice-veined Fleetbot you’d anticipated, but the whole world is upside down tonight. You don’t know what is real. 

She cocks her head to see the baby’s face. 

“He’s asleep,” she whispers. “You can put him to bed.” She squats to run the handheld cleaner over the puddle.

“Where?”

She hesitates in the middle of vacuuming then slowly completes the job and rises to face you.

“You still don’t remember,” she says. It’s not a question, it’s a desolate statement of fact. She strokes one hand with the other, a self-comforting gesture. “Okay. Okay. You don’t remember. But you know who I am?”

“You’re - ” you start, and you realize you’re going to have trouble saying these words you don’t remember ever saying about anyone. You have no idea what her reaction will be, or what she really is to you. “You’re my wife,” you say stiffly. 

You see her absorb your awkwardness, how these words don’t come naturally or lovingly. She has surely heard them before, but in what tone? She flinches, and in one of the first unconflicted emotions you’ve had today, you feel sad for having caused it. A second later your cynicism returns and you wonder what the flinch means. Is she hurt, or worried that she’ll have to renegotiate your complicated arrangement?

She pulls herself to attention. It’s an amazing transformation, from a tired woman in her pajamas to someone who couldn’t be mistaken for anything but an admiral in command, even barefoot. She summons all her defenses to handle you and you don’t know how to take it. Who is this person? What will she say next?

“Yes. And do you know this child?”

You look down at the soft bundle putting your arm to sleep and slowly shake your head. She blinks tears out of her eyes so quickly that you almost doubt seeing them in the first place – but they were there, and that is interesting. Unless she’s an expert liar, she genuinely cares about the baby, whoever he is. She trusted you with him, and that tells you something more about your relationship, but not nearly enough. She takes the baby from you and lifts him to her shoulder in a natural move you doubt many admirals have mastered.

“This is our son, Teddy,” she says, with a look that catches your eyes and drops away. It is full of pain. She turns away quickly and retreats down the hall, leaving you behind again, this time gutted by her words. 

_You don’t recognize your own child?_

TO BE CONTINUED.


	7. A blow to the solar plexus

The horror of your condition strikes you like a blow to the solar plexus. You weave slightly. _Your son._ How could you have missed it? Before he stopped screaming, you caught sight of eyes the same clear blue as Janeway’s, under a shock of black hair. Did the accident blind you too? 

Down the hall, Janeway enters a room on the left. You hurry to the door. A glowing solar system mobile over the baby’s bed lights the room just enough for you to watch her settle Teddy on his back and tuck a small blanket tightly around him. On the other side of the room is a slightly larger bed – with a dark-haired little girl in it, asleep on her back, arms flung above her head. As Janeway stands over Teddy you go to the girl’s bedside and watch her chest rise and fall in her white nightgown. 

She is three or four years old, tiny and exquisite, with marks of your and Janeway’s DNA in her features and coloring. She is breathtaking. You long for her to open her eyes so you can see their color, but she is fast asleep. There is not a moment’s doubt in your mind that these children are yours. You have no specific memory of them, but at a level deeper than memory they are attached to your soul. You are their father. You love them infinitely.

When you look up, Janeway is in the doorway, watching you. 

“Her name is Taya,” she says, and moves off down the hall. You are torn between watching your beautiful children sleep for as long as you can stay awake and chasing Janeway to ask as many questions as she’ll put up with. You have children together. Nothing is as you imagined. You have to know the full truth. You kiss the children’s foreheads and go after your wife.

She’s in the bedroom at the end of the hall, sitting on the far side of the bed with a light on the table beside her, rubbing lotion on her feet. She nods toward a glass of water on the other nightstand.

“You need a lot of fluids, the doctor says. And you should rest. He’ll come by tomorrow to check your vitals. Your memory should improve as the swelling subsides.” 

“Swelling?” You haven’t noticed any swelling, but you haven’t exactly stopped to survey your body carefully.

“On the brain. That’s what’s affecting your memory center.” She is businesslike but she leans back against the pillows and looks at you as if she barely has the energy to turn her head. Her gaze is almost unbearably lonely, as if she longs for her husband but realizes that he isn’t really here. You aren’t really here. You are the shell of what he was. 

You wish you had him here, to comfort her and answer more of your endless questions. _Am I really the man she loves? Do I love her? Do I hold her? What is it like between us? Do I make love to her in this bed? Do we take care of each other? Where are our extended families? And how – how in the world did all this happen?_ Now that you're standing before her, you can't think of a coherent sentence that wouldn't sound brutal coming out of your mouth.

“I see.” You look around the room and wonder what to do next. On the nightstand on your side is a photo of you and Janeway in dress uniform, tight in each other’s arms, looking not at the camera but at each other with expressions that make you blink back your own tears at what you've lost. So much has changed in the last few minutes that you don’t know what to say to her, but one thing you're sure of is that it would be completely inappropriate to crawl into bed with this woman you met ten minutes ago.

“Where do you want me?” you ask. Your voice sounds hesitant, like a guest on the doorstep, not a man in his own home.

She stares at you a few seconds before grasping your meaning with another micro-flinch. You were trying to be respectful and you’ve wounded her again, rejected her. But her recovery time is amazing, a credit to Starfleet.

“Oh, you mean where should you sleep?” She pulls her arms tight around herself.

You stuff your hands in your pockets, unable to take your eyes off the bed in front of you and the woman on it. You sleep together in this bed. You can’t help but imagine it – but at the same time you feel as if you’re some pervert fantasizing about a total stranger sitting across from you on public transit. 

“I don’t – I mean, I can sleep wherever you want. I don’t mean that I – that is – ” you stumble over your words, but there’s nothing you can say to retrieve the message she’s gotten that you don’t want to sleep beside her. 

“Of course,” she says. “I didn’t mean to be presumptuous.” 

She scoots across the bed to hand you the water, the medicine that will bring back her husband. As you reach for it, her eyes fall on the finger that wore the ring you sold. It still has a slight indentation and a pale line where the ring was. You didn’t notice when you took it off. She swallows hard but says nothing. She collects clothes from a drawer, leads you silently to a guest suite on the far side of the house, turns on the lamp and puts the clothes on the bed. 

With an awkward smile she says, “I hope you’ll feel more like yourself in the morning.” Then she flees.


	8. Your heart does something completely foreign

You kick off your boots and lie on the bed staring at the ceiling as minutes tick away. You think of B’Elanna and Tom, how happy they are, and of Sveta’s devastated expression as she told you of the Maquis. In that moment you suddenly saw the twelve years of age on her. You wonder what happened to others aboard the Val Jean – Ayala, Tuvok, Chell, Sudor – during your odyssey through the Delta quadrant. How many survived? 

Even though your mind is gradually accepting the reality that twelve years have passed, it’s hard to shut off emotions for people you remember seeing what feels like only days ago. Seska is dead, Sveta said. You had conflicted feelings about her, but she’s still a fallen comrade, still a loss you need to grieve. And all the others – you have mourned them once, of course. Now you have to do it again. A sudden rage turns your vision red. You wonder how B’Elanna got through it.

You breathe though your anger. You’ll need a long vision quest later to begin to make sense of things, but you don’t know where your medicine bundle is. Deliberately, you turn your mind to your children. _Taya. Teddy._ You whisper their names. The instant you knew they were yours, they became part of you as fully as if you could remember every second from the moment they were conceived. The wonder of seeing their faces still fills you. You decide to go to their room and satisfy your earlier urge to watch them sleep, then you think of something more important. 

You sit up and call for the computer to show you images of the kids. They fill the screen beside the bed: a newborn girl, first steps, birthdays, travel, pillow forts, then another newborn in the arms of his weary mother who nestles against you in bed, the three and then the four of you tumbled together like puppies, laughing, so happy and relaxed you would hardly recognize yourself without the tattoo. You have a family. Your heart does something completely foreign and utterly joyful in your chest.

Somehow you found your way from the angry place you were, through trauma and loss and danger, into this life. Everything about it is miraculous. You reach out your hand to touch Taya and Teddy’s faces in the vids as she runs to hug you, as he lies content in your arms and stretches a perfect miniature hand to touch your face. You watch more vids. The minutes compose hours and still you’re awake, absorbing the visual history of a life you have never known but longed for with your whole being.

You hear Teddy crying from the other side of the house but he shushes a minute later. You change into the pajamas Janeway – no, Kathryn, present in so many of the vids – laid out for you and go back to the greatest film festival you’ve ever seen.

You think of her – beautiful Kathryn, whom you learned to love in the forgotten years. It’s obvious every time you’re pictured together in the family photos. Yet she is part of the leadership of the organization that allowed the destruction of your village. This is true, and difficult, but it is also true that you decided to put on a Starfleet uniform again and serve as her first officer for seven years. You would never have done that for someone you don’t trust. 

At last you work up the nerve to call for the vid of your own wedding. It’s outdoors, a tranquil scene beside a lake. Tuvok’s appearance with Kathryn on his arm comforts you – another Maquis who endorses this marriage. You’re a little embarrassed to see how choked up you were in front of the crowd as you pledged yourself to her and slid a ring onto her finger. You have never been that way with anyone. What did B’Elanna say? _I’ve never seen two people more devoted._ Now you see. Now you believe.

You wonder how early the jeweler in San Francisco opens so you can get back your ring. You realize with a start that nothing in the world could persuade you to abandon this family – no surprise revelation when your memory returns, no plot twist. You would fight for Taya and Teddy and Kathryn and the peace you’ve found with them. 

You get up and pad through the house to Kathryn’s – to _your_ room. Delta is asleep on a cushion in a barricaded corner of the kitchen and the floor is booby-trapped with toys that must be Taya’s. You step on a block in stocking feet and nearly bite your tongue trying to stifle your howl. Then you smile, because this is your life, and it’s messy and chaotic and wonderful. You sweep the toys into a bin and keep going.

Kathryn is asleep on her side, with an arm stretched out and a hand on your pillow. Teddy lies curled against her, her open tunic clutched in his tiny fist. Her breast is bare where she nursed him back to sleep. He has a trickle of dried milk down one cheek and his lips are rosy. There are tears dried on her cheeks. You have never seen anything more heartrendingly beautiful than the two of them like this.

You sit beside her and run your thumb down the track of her tear. Her eyes blink open and she rolls toward you.

“Chakotay?” 

All her questions are in your name. _Do you remember? Do you still love me? Are we still a family?_ Her blue eyes search yours and you know that there is no version of reality in which you don’t love this woman, no matter what the whole truth turns out to be. There is only one answer.

You lower your head to kiss her – your first kiss, carrying all your tender uncertainty, but she answers with a kiss that carries the others in it, the sum of her love and anguish, the history of your complicated relationship and enduring bond. Although your memory has not returned, you feel like Sleeping Beauty awakened from a curse. 

“Yes,” you say. You slide under the quilt and mold your body around her back, stretching a protective arm across her and Teddy. She slides her hand over and latches her fingers through yours, settles herself against you, sighs in contentment, and immediately goes to sleep.

In spite of all the images and vids, you still remember nothing. You may never remember. But yes all the same. Yes to her. Yes to the children. Yes to the life this unknown future Chakotay created, even if you never fully understand how it came to be. Even if you never merge with him and regain the lost years, you think as you give yourself up to exhaustion and the comfort of your own bed, you will be grateful to him every day you live. 

END.


End file.
